A typical a network environment includes a number of user devices such as computers and workstations, and network devices such as routers, hubs, switches, firewalls and load balancers. A local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), and the Internet are examples of known computing or communication networks.
Network devices in a given network are typically provided by different vendors, and they are configured according to the specifications of those vendors. When added to the network, the network devices are initially configured so that they are operationally synchronized with each other. However, when a network device fails or goes off-line for whatever reason, and then comes back on-line, the configuration of that network device may no longer be in sync with the other network devices.
In a high availability (HA) network environment, back-up network devices are typically connected to the network, so that in the event of a failure of the primary network device, the back-up device can be brought on-line in place of the primary device. Before the back-up network devices can be operational, a user has to either physically go to the location of the back-up device and provide commands to configure it to synchronize with the other devices already operational in the network, or individually access the affected back-up device through the network.